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Shorter Rules
St Basil the Great, tr. Lowther Clarke, 1925
Rule 166: With What Disposition Ought We to Listen to Him Who Urges Us to Keep the…
With the same disposition as the child consumed by hunger obeys the nurse who calls him to eat1; or as any man desiring to live obeys him who gives him the necessaries of life. Or rather much more eagerly in proportion as eternal life is more precious than this present life. For the Lord says: ‘The commandment of God is life eternal.”2 Just as the act of eating is to bread, so working is to the commandment, for the Lord Himself says elsewhere: “3 My meat is to do the will of my Father which sent me.”
Notes
- Ps. cxix. 139. Bas. ὁ ζῆλός σου . . . τῶν λόγων σου with ℵca AT and ℵca RT respectively, as against Sw.’s ℵ text ὁ ζῆλος τοῦ οἴκου σου . . . τῶν ἐντολῶν σου.
- Jn. xii. 50¶.
- R. ad ubera.